Like Reep said, Lewis didn't like the Arabian Nights very much (it was in Surprised by Joy).

Ah yes, how could I forget?

Another thing to keep in mind is how people love to discredit people who are considered hounourable. I have no idea why people like doing it, but they do. Think about Christopher Columbus and authors from the past, Lewis included, who are stamped as intolerant. Some, like Columbus imo, deserve it but others certainly don't.

Like Reep said, Lewis didn't like the Arabian Nights very much (it was in Surprised by Joy).

Ah yes, how could I forget?

Another thing to keep in mind is how people love to discredit people who are considered hounourable. I have no idea why people like doing it, but they do. Think about Christopher Columbus and authors from the past, Lewis included, who are stamped as intolerant. Some, like Columbus imo, deserve it but others certainly don't.

Yup, exactly. Another example is Joseph Conrad whose novella "Heart of Darkness" helped expose the horrible mistreatment of the natives in the congo. But these days that's not good enough, because Conrad used the N-word. Chinua Achebe, another later famous African novelist, made the argument that "Heart of Darkness" shouldn't be taught because it is racist---even though it is obvious that Conrad's novel is against racism.

Mark Twain? Same problem.

It's easy to chalk the portrayals up to racism. Like Skilletdude and Reepicheep775, I think racism is not the case.

Like Reep said, Lewis didn't like the Arabian Nights very much (it was in Surprised by Joy). The Calormenes are very much in the tradition of the Arabian Nights, and like them you have very cruel characters and very heroic ones. We don't call the Arabian Nights racist because we know that they come from the traditions they portray. The fact that Lewis tried to add on to this tradition has opened him to criticisms of racism because...well, it's just simpler to explain it that way.

Yes that is a good explanation for the choice of a Middle-Eastern type culture for Calormen, I agree. Furthermore, the laziness which allows people to think C.S.Lewis is racist, not taking into account factors like a change in society's attitudes since he died, or that the Calormenes were polytheistic rather than monotheistic, also allows people to call the work C.S.Lewis disliked so much as Arabian nights instead of its correct name of One thousand and one nights.

According to the linked article many of these tales were not strictly speaking from Arabia. Other Middle-Eastern folk tales were incorporated into this volume by English translators as well, so that many tales came from many places that weren't Arabic or even Arabic speaking, like the largely Turkic empire of Khorazan (sp), centred around the modern-day Uzbekistan cities of Samarkand and Bokhara, Spain, Persia, Turkey, Syria, the Indian Sub-continent, or even Egypt and Mesopotamia, not only Arabia and the Gulf area, itself. The wikipedia article I linked to also points out that these tales date from the Caliphate's golden age, when those of Islamic beliefs lived cheek by jowl with Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jewish and other faiths far more tolerantly than is the case today in the Middle East. This was before Khorazan (also called Khwarezm?) was smashed by the Mongolian hordes under Genghis Khan in the 1200's AD.

The central character who frames these tales is Scheharazade, a Persian name for the lady who tells her murderous husband a fresh tale every night, keeping him guessing as to the end of the story, so as to keep him from murdering her as he had already done his previous wives. No wonder that C.S.Lewis disliked the so-called 'Arabian nights' which might have been more accurately described the Persian nights. Now I think about it, I can also see a sneaking resemblance between Scheharazade and Aravis, who also had been trained in story-telling, like her Calormene class-mates, and who was likewise fleeing from the terms of a most unsuitable marriage, imposed on her due to custom and tradition.

On the other hand, what has kept these stories alive is what they say about good and evil, about the people who lived then and how little different their hopes and dreams are from those of people who live today. And as I mentioned on the other thread, it is hard to dissociate the sort of Calormene society described in HHB and LB from Arabia when it seems that in the Gulf states the sorts of customs and human rights abuses described in Calormen still appear to go on there. Unfortunately the cap may still fit.

I'm sorry, but I have to agree with Skilletdude. Lewis was an ethnocentric bigot. Not racist, not imperialistic, but ethnocentric.

I'm not sure why Sibelius thinks that imperialism and racist/ethnocentric bigotry are synonyms, but in case anyone else is similarly confused, I'll clarify. Imperialism is a desire to see your country take political control of other countries. There are any number of reasons why a person can see imperialist expansion as desirable. National pride, greed for resources or geographic advantages, and yes, bigotry is one reason. But one does not have to be a bigot to be an imperialist, nor does one have to be an imperialist to be a bigot. I would say that HHB actually has subtle anti-imperialist themes. It's the "baddies" who are trying to invade other countries. That doesn't make the bigotry any less flagrant.

As for racism, Lewis was in no way shape or form a racist, any more than he was a sexist (but I'm veering off topic). Racism is the belief that people of a certain race are bad, stupid, or in some other way inferior because of innate, biological factors. As Skilletdude pointed out, if Lewis was a racist, he would not have a dark-skinned girl as the brave heroine of HHB. Yes, she's flawed, but so are all of the other Narnia kids.

Ethnocentric bigotry is the belief that one's own culture and folkways are superior to all others, and the practice of foreign customs and cultural traditions leads to or is caused by an inferiority of mind or spirit. In HHB, all of the Calormenes, from the aristocrats, to the city guards, to the humble fishermen, are portrayed as evil and grasping. Even Aravis is kind of a pill at first. As for the Narnians, everything about their culture is praised in comparison to the Calormenes, even their style of dress. Aravis only begins to become a good person when she decides to reject her culture. Like the American immigrant children of the early 20th century, who were taught that their native traditions were backwards and wrong, Aravis' virtue is in her ability to assimilate into an Anglocentric culture.

I'm not sure why Sibelius thinks that imperialism and racist/ethnocentric bigotry are synonyms,

I wasn't aware that I did think that. I made the point that Lewis was neither an imperialist nor a racist, citing evidence on both cases that he was not.

No, I am not confused about the difference bewteen the two, but the two are often discussed hand-in-hand because we're talking about Great Britain, a former empire that 1) colonized, 2) imposed its culture on other races, 3) being pro-Britain meant being pro-everything it did. It that sense being imperialist could lead one to be racist (or vice versa), though it does not necessitate it.

but in case anyone else is similarly confused, I'll clarify. Imperialism is a desire to see your country take political control of other countries. There are any number of reasons why a person can see imperialist expansion as desirable. National pride, greed for resources or geographic advantages, and yes, bigotry is one reason. But one does not have to be a bigot to be an imperialist, nor does one have to be an imperialist to be a bigot. I would say that HHB actually has subtle anti-imperialist themes. It's the "baddies" who are trying to invade other countries. That doesn't make the bigotry any less flagrant.

Good observation. And Lewis again condemns it when Prince Rilian decries invading a land "which never did me harm, murdering their natural lords" etc.

I just hope they keep the Calormens the way they are. I think Middle Eastern People should play them.

I agree with puddleglum32, I really hope that they keep them (their culture) the same way as CS lewis wrote them, and yes middle eastern people should play them.

Ethnocentric bigotry is the belief that one's own culture and folkways are superior to all others, and the practice of foreign customs and cultural traditions leads to or is caused by an inferiority of mind or spirit. In HHB, all of the Calormenes, from the aristocrats, to the city guards, to the humble fishermen, are portrayed as evil and grasping.

That is what the so-called 'speaking classes' of today might have us believe. But C.S.Lewis was a student and a teacher of the Medieval way of life, one reason why he depicted the Medieval way of life in his Narnia tales. For instance, the medieval Islamic caliphates were Islam's golden ages, though the Arabian invasions which inaugurated these Caliphates weren't really set up to administer the empires they had won. I'm not sure how such governance could be guided by the as yet unwritten Koran for exampe.

The first Caliphate was led by Mohammed's successors who were leaders among equals, like Mohammed, himself, and also the sort of leadership C.S.Lewis embraces in his depiction of Narnia. This is the idea of being responsible for one's people, rather than thinking that the administered territory is one's personal property. St Paul tends to take the same view of leadership as does C.S.Lewis. This is the full significance of Christianity in world affairs before Mohammed was born.

The main weakness of that particular Caliphate, centred in Syria's Damascus, was its overly Arabic nature which alienated non-Arabic Muslims. The next Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, was administered from Baghdad, still the capital of Iraq. This was the Caliphate of the 'Arabian nights', where the leaders lived shut off from their people, in wonderful palaces, attended by houris in outfits like Aravis wore when escaping Tashbaan.

Of course that was the Middle Ages where outrageous punisments were the norm, not only in the Abbasid Caliphate, and where thinking one's kingdom was one's personal property was just as typical of their Frankish Merovingian neighbours and their future Carolingian opponents. This was a time when the Church under Pope Gregory the Great, fell into the administrative gap left by the departing Romans and when those who admired the Roman 'old days' were unable to apply the lessons learned from them for their immediate situation.

When we learn that C.S.Lewis disliked the 'Arabian nights', and that sort of world, is it really cultural imperialism or some thing else? Was he truly trumpeting English values at the expense of those values in countries around him in the Would War II period? Or was he rather pointing out something else?

The Ancient Greeks definitely invented democracy, even though it was confined to men. The Romans also invented the idea of 'the republic'. St Paul famously was a Roman citizen, himself, whose teachings helped to undermine the old notion of Emperors being above the law. But the English, more than most in European history, invented and promoted the idea that even the King must obey the law and consult his people.

The story of HHB is almost like a clash of two different points of view about leadership. I think that filmmakers should stick to a Mid-Eastern sort of flavour, if this is the correct way to depict Calormen in HHB. And if that is not considered a good idea, I hope there is some other way of showing the changing of leadership.

Which do you think would be the lesser of two evils:

1. The Calormenes are kept as a Middle-East-like society but they are viewed in a much more sympathetic light. Instead of the enitre society being corrupt, only the high officials would be so.

2. External Calormene culture is completely reimagined, possibly even as non-humans, but they still retain the characteristics of their thoroughly corrupt culture.

I would definitley rather go with the second option although, of course, I'd rather they stick to the book. If the second option was chosen, I would roll my eyes but I think I could get used to the idea. If the first option was chosen, I would despair.

The second option is much worse. I really am starting to not merely dislike, but be revolted by, the level of moral wimpification on the part of filmmakers who sanitize or change things to be more "politically correct." It's not that I only like politicially incorrect movies or anything. On the contrary, I don't really like them at all. But why do we have to be so afraid and a**l when it comes to depicting a different, fictional race in our own western literature, one that has its origin in the literature of those cultures it portrays?

Nothing about the how the Calormenes are portrayed makes me think that 1) Muslims are evil, 2) CS Lewis thought they were or that other cultures were, 3) that Lewis only meant for the Narnians to be good.

I can sit here all day and pull examples out of the books: the Calormenes think Narnians are "barbarians" and "sorcerers." He depicts cultural misunderstanding on both sides. Aslan tells Rabadash to appeal before the statue of Tash, since that is who Rabadash worships.

We shouldn't have to be afraid to stand up to the mindless chatter that paints anything and everything as "racist," if it doesn't portray all cultures (except American) as wonderful and nuanced. Andrew Adamson made Maugrim and the wolves in LWW sound like American GIs. Not very flattering, now is it? How do I feel about that? I dunno. But I'll take my salt along with the rest of it.

We as Narnia fans are afraid of "public perception" of Narnia and Lewis as being racist. We have nothing to fear: it and he aren't racist. People who say so have probably only read the books only once, if at all.

PS: remember what happened to The Last Airbender and Prince of Persia. Filmmakers hoping to avoid any racial tensio by a) switching up the races or b) making the entire cast caucasian so as to avoid political undertones (AND adding in "George Bush is evil because he lied to get us into war" undertones. "Undertones") were STILL branded as racist by critics. You can't win this debate by trying to prove you're not a racist by showing how much you love and appreciate other cultures (that only proves to them how much you're trying to make up for your racist attitude, you racist!). You're either a racist or you're a racist.

Thank you Freud and psychology.

@Clive Staples Sibelius: While I agree with what you're saying about sanitization, I can't agree that option two is far worse. I think it's more important for the story that the Calormenes are a power-hungry empire that arranges forced marriages, treats lower-class people (as well as animals, women and children) as property and therefore willing to sell their children in order to make profit etc than the Calormenes wearing turbans, smelling like garlic and saying, "O my father and o the delight of my eyes."

There's over-sanitization in both cases, but example two does significantly less damage to the spirit of the story.

Even Aravis is kind of a pill at first. As for the Narnians, everything about their culture is praised in comparison to the Calormenes, even their style of dress. Aravis only begins to become a good person when she decides to reject her culture. Like the American immigrant children of the early 20th century, who were taught that their native traditions were backwards and wrong, Aravis' virtue is in her ability to assimilate into an Anglocentric culture

That is because the Calormenes are human, and humans, whatever their nationality or culture, tend to be self-serving and grasping when they disregard the ethics of their own belief system or if they think they are somehow privileged and not bound by the same rules as everyone else. The main problem with Calormen in the only two books we actually see much of them, is that some of their leaders, such as Rishda Tarkaan, Rabadash, or Ahoshta Tarkaan, worship money, power and display rather than any God, including their own chief deity, Tash. Otherwise I disagree with your statement about Narnia being praised at Calormen's expense.

For a start, the story is told from Shasta's POV. He doesn't love Arsheesh who was good enough to rear him. That is Shasta's problem, not Arsheesh's, since he doesn't require Shasta's affection. Yes, Arsheesh is the sort of grasping man who though undeniably too poor to marry, probably would not marry even if he had a lot more money. He is in love with money, not people. Something he has in common with many a person that lives somewhat more comfortably in any part of the R.L world, Middle-East, India, Australia or UK. Or, dare I say it, USA?

Though I agree I wouldn't want to be married to someone like Arsheesh anyway, he isn't particularly evil. Arsheesh at least took the trouble to rear Shasta, even if he saw the boy as a useful form of investment rather than as a person, the real reason why there could be no proper family feeling between Arsheesh and Shasta. Shasta tends to despise the Calormenes around him but that is not because they are bad, but because he is discontented with his lot, whilst they feel at home where they are, much like the Narnians Shasta first met when he crossed the mountains. Aravis, whom he meets later, is similarly discontented. She is trying to escape a forced marriage engineered by a step-mother Aravis didn't get along with. Hence her initial rejection of Calormene culture.

There are plenty of people in HHB Calormene culture who are good and worthy, even if Shasta, an outsider, has no reason to know or like them. Aravis' maidservant, whom she describes as 'only a slave', certainly did not deserve the punishment she got for Aravis' escape, as Aslan did point out. Nor was the private secretary who wrote Aravis' feigned letter. And then there were Aravis' father and brothers, who weren't in the antagonism between Aravis and her stepmother. The crowds who clogged up the streets weren't bad because, having been pushed around, likewise pushed others around. Nor was the soldier who belted Shasta for his cheek.

Eustace said in VDT that Calormen sounds the least phony Narnian country to live in, and he had a point. Eustace first met Calormenes when Pug, who wasn't a Calormene, tried to sell him and his companions as slaves. But from LB's Shift, we learn that even if the Calormenes bought and sold slaves themselves, they also produced and sold other things worth having including fruit, roses, and fish. We also learn from Shasta, Bree and Emeth that not everyone in Calormen was cruel to slaves or animals or willingly engaged in unethical business practices.

Calormen was a place that prospered through commerce and hard work. It hadn't been affected by the White Witch's Narnian rampage. There were roads, a postal service and children of the ruling class, like Lazaraleen or Aravis, got better educations than the Narnians did under Miraz in PC. The Tisroc's palace and notable buildings were worth looking at. Shasta and Aravis both enjoyed lovely meals and living conditions during their Tashbaan stay. No doubt the Calormene clothes, as worn by the ruling class, didn't look as good to Shasta because they were too ostentatious. Dyed beards? What next!

I could go on. But really, it was the leaders. If you want one idea of self-serving leadership just look at the Tisroc and how Rabadash took after him. And if you want another view of leadership, just take a look at King Lune's attitude to kingship, and see how much it contrasts with the Tisroc's ideas. The good conditions Narnia was enjoying at that time was mainly because of the Golden Age of the Pevensie rule, but in Archenland Lord Bar, an embezzler, obviously didn't like King Lune much or the Pevensies.

Nothing about the how the Calormenes are portrayed makes me think that 1) Muslims are evil, 2) CS Lewis thought they were or that other cultures were, 3) that Lewis only meant for the Narnians to be good.

The Polytheistic Calormenes don't even resemble good Muslims who are strictly monotheist. I might also add that good Muslims eschew ostentatious clothing and the display that the Tisroc or Lazaraleen like to put on. Islam recommends kindness to slaves and to animals, including what is Halal and what is Herem to eat. Despite its medieval Middle Eastern/Indian ambience, to think that HHB's Calormen infers that Muslims are evil shows prejudice on the part of the thinker, does it not?

Moreover, although Islam is the predominant religion in the Middle East and towards India, Christians form a minority, along with Zoroastrians, Ba'hai, Judaism, Hinduism and other faiths. Don't forget also that much of the Middle East, before it was part of the Ottoman Empire, was originally part of the Roman and Byzantine Empires, where the population was at one time massively Christian and just as likely to be Caucasian as not.

Furthermore, I don't think C.S.Lewis was Anglocentric because he felt that responsible leaders with a regard for what is lawful, were preferable for any society rather than Rabadash's, the Tisroc's or Anradin's unethical behaviour. Reepicheep775's first option is fine with me. By all means stress the villainy of the likes of Anradin, Rabadash, or Ahoshta, and treat the underlings more sympathetically, even Arsheesh, hard-fisted though he was.